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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

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Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#201

Post by yabones »

jaywalk wrote: post #182
kibwen wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key word there being analog phone lines. Cell phone lines, which account for 99.99999% of all phone communication these days, are IMO worse than VOIP for sound quality (though better at latency). It's weird that kids growing up in the post-landline era will never realize how clear and amazingly low-latency phone calls used to be. If two people were seated across a table talking on a landline, they'd hear the sign…

Audio quality on cellular is widely variable. If both ends support VoLTE/HD Voice, the audio quality is actually superior to analog.

VoLTE with fancy compression didn't make audio quality better, it just freed up bandwidth for carriers to cram more channels in. This has repeated for every single "improvement" in VoIP technology over its ~40 year history, the tradeoff always goes in the direction of making more money instead of offering better service.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#202

Post by yifanl »

ryandrake wrote: post #192
midoridensha wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a _phone_. Phone calls are it's primary function. No, it's not. You sound like a dinosaur. A phone's primary functions are 1) text-messaging apps, 2) camera, 3) dating apps, 4) banking apps, and various others. Phone calls are somewhere around #20.

The way I like to look at it is: Imagine a world where the concept of a phone call never existed. Then, suddenly someone invents an app that: 1. Allows an instant, full-screen foreground takeover over whatever else you are currently doing on the device 2. Rings and vibrates your device 3. Has a button that could allow an unknown person to send and receive audio to and from your device 4. All of this is triggered remo…

If things were different, things would be different, certainly. But things are not different, so things are not different.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#203

Post by joshstrange »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #172

I expected this to be about the now common pattern of subjecting people to some shit version of Alexa for 10 minutes before you eventually crack and allow them to sit on hold for someone who might actually be able to solve their problem. Bonus shit biscuits if you allow them to get to some answer from Brenda (the brainless Alexa clone) where you basically say "great news, you can do this online". As if anyone with ha…

Agreed, the 2 most annoying thing for me when I have to call into a business:

1. "You can find the answers you need online at our website: w w w dot our business name dot com" - First I would never call if I could do what I needed online, second get me to the menu already. I hate waiting 30-60sec+ for a prerecorded message that doesn't tell me anything new.

2. "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" - Bullshit. I'll bet my right arm that either that message is always there OR you are "somehow" always horribly understaffed which is your problem, not mine. I accepted this at the start of COVID but pretty much every business has left that message in even well after it was reasonable.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#204

Post by filoleg »

tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

> I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere.

Not trying to defend US or its telecoms here, but I think it has more to do with scammers trying to maximize for profit.

Just like with malware heavily targeting Windows instead of macOS/Linux, or some apps prioritizing iOS instead of Android (by either launching as iOS-only and then introducing an Android version later, or just not holding up the quality and polish of the iOS version on Android). It isn't because Windows is inherently more insecure, and not because Android is a worse platform. It is simply because it makes sense moneywise.

Why would a scammer focus on targeting low-disposable-income countries, if they, on average, can extract as much money from one US person as they would have to from 10-15 people in Phillipines. For scammers, it seems to be simply more profitable and efficient to target US residents.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#205

Post by superkuh »

My Nokia 6030 dumb phone answers calls instantly with no fuss, has physical buttons, is tiny in my pocket, indestructable, and lasts a week on a battery. It is what every phone should aspire to be. It's a shame so many people try to stuff computers into theirs.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#206

Post by knaekhoved »

tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

> I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out

I bought airpods day 1 and I've had every single issue described in the article. Carplay is unreliable. Airpods are unreliable. As apple hardware steadily improves, apple software steadily degrades.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#207

Post by aitchnyu »

Markoff wrote: post #37
gary_0 wrote: post #12

Because phones aren't allowed to have bezels anymore for some reason, I'm constantly hanging up on people because there's no room for a proximity sensor to turn off the screen so my cheek presses the "hang up" button. It tries to use the front camera as a makeshift sensor, but it doesn't work very well. Recently I reacted with incredulity when the people on the other end could properly hear me through a newly-connect…

That's not problem of a bezel, but either crappy software or bad sensor, never happened to me through 11+ years of using Android phones with touch screen. Better choose decent phone next time, mind sharing what phone causes you this trouble?

Circa 2012, top 60% of an Android call screen was unresponsive to touch and never had phantom touches. As the buttons creeped upward, I get phantom mute, hold and even hangups.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#208

Post by pannSun »

zdragnar wrote: post #152
midoridensha wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that's Google and not your device manufacturer or your carrier? The dialer on my Android phone seems OK. I'm not going to claim it's the best UX ever, but it certainly doesn't interrupt me with dialogs about anything. Android phones are infamous for having carrier-required crap pre-loaded.

I switched from LG to a pixel. I don't regret the better hardware or more frequent updates, but so many tiny things were substantially better on the LG. Biggest peeve: on the LG phones I had, you could use the volume buttons / menu to silence or turn down individual applications. On the pixel, out of the box you only get a global media volume control. Also have experience with the stock phone dialler putting up promp…

Notice how in this conversation, no precise program name or version was brought up. "The stock dialer on an LG", "the dialer on a Pixel"...

On a computer (a real computer), the first words would be something like "On Firefox 106.0.2 64-bit", but phones have such abysmal user control that most of the time we don't even know what programs we're running.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#209

Post by kevmo314 »

imchillyb wrote: post #180
midoridensha wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a _phone_. Phone calls are it's primary function. No, it's not. You sound like a dinosaur. A phone's primary functions are 1) text-messaging apps, 2) camera, 3) dating apps, 4) banking apps, and various others. Phone calls are somewhere around #20.

You sound like you’re disconnected from reality. Phone = Telephone: The term telephone was adopted into the vocabulary of many languages. It is derived from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, "far" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice", together meaning "distant voice". Distant voice communication is the entire purpose for a phone. Just because you want or expect your phone to do more, doesn’t make your desires the primary function of the de…

The save button icon is also a floppy disk.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#210

Post by 2rsf »

rchaud wrote: post #157

The article makes a great point early on: hearing voices over VOIP is markedly different than over analog phone lines. The robotic voice and the weird compression when your connection isn't good are common for me. Worst of all is the 0.5-1 second delay I still sometimes hear, on local calls no less! If the same call was being had over a phone line and we were in the same country, the audio fidelity would be excellent…

I'm not sure about the exact year but many phone lines stopped being analog in the early 70's and almost completely by the 90's
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